The demand for minimally invasive medical interventions, where instruments are inserted through the skin into the patient body under various kinds of guidance or visualization (X-ray, ultrasound, or other means of visualizing or identifying the position of the instruments), is growing fast and so does the need for trained persons able to carry out such interventions with a high level of security for the patient
Many documents in the prior art disclose simulation devices for training physicians to the corresponding techniques, such devices being usually combined with virtual environment display systems and force feedback systems, arranged to act on the medical instrument on the basis of a motion information provided by the motion sensor. An example of such a device is disclosed in international patent application published under WO/2005/091253 in the name of the Applicant.
The complexity of these minimally invasive interventions grows also, now regularly requiring insertion of several different instruments within a single intervention in the patient body. Further to those instruments, the physicians may have to handle a syringe for contrast injection, an indeflator with a manometer in case an inflatable balloon is to be used during the intervention, as well as at least a first pedal to control operation of an X-ray emitter and a second pedal to start or stop recording the intervention.
Some of the known simulation devices provide solutions to allow physicians to train their skill in manipulating several medical instruments at the same time. An example of such a simulation device is disclosed in patent publication EP 1 576 566 A1, filed in the name of Mentice A B. This device discloses insertion of several instruments within separate instrument inputs of its housing and, further allows tracking of several instruments inserted within a same instrument input of the device, by provision of a number of carriages regularly spaced apart along a direction going away from an entry port of the device and, each of which is associated to one instrument to track the motions of the latter.
However, all the instruments inserted in this device are, either movable completely independently from each other in the case of separate inputs, or guided within a same channel until they are successively clamped in respective spaced carriages in case they are inserted within one single housing input. This last structure is well adapted for implementation of an intervention in which the instruments are all arranged concentrically to each other. In the case of instruments which are to be guided independently from each other, this device raises some interference issues inasmuch as, in a real intervention, the instruments may be separated from each other at an early stage of the intervention, while they would remain in a same channel in the simulation device. In other words, the different instruments travel through a common path in the device which is longer than it would be in a real intervention.
On the contrary, in case the instruments are inserted in separate inputs, there is no interference at all which neither corresponds to a real situation.
Consequently, a need exists, to improve the known simulation devices, for devices in which the instruments may follow separate paths according to a corresponding real intervention procedure. Such devices should have one entry port into which several instruments may be inserted simultaneously so that the handling and manipulating conditions are as real as possible for the physician.